Can there be righteousness without god?

Philosophy Forums Religion and Spirituality
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I am an atheist. That is, I do not believe there is a supreme being or a creator entity. I believe that religions are cultural contructs serving to preserve the structure of society.

I was raised Christian. I did not have any sort of falling out with my religion, I just slowly grew into a different person. I woke up one day and realized my world view did not require or include a diety.

However, I believe in morality. I believe in righteousness for the sake of righteousness. I do not expect reward for my “good” deeds. But I do hope that if I am good to others, they will return the favor. I often justify a difficult action by saying it’s “the right thing to do”.

I have a friend who is not a good person. She is cruel, vindictive, selfish, uncaring, dishonest, and back-stabbing. She goes to church. She says she is not an atheist. Now, we’ve all known someone like this. Hell (NPI), every church must have a dozen such people. So her existence is not surprising or noteworthy in itself. But as I contrasted her life and mine, I noticed the complexity of my situation, perhaps not for the first time.

I am moral, but I am an atheist. Why am I moral? How does it serve me to be righteous? This is the inherent contradiction in my world view. Being nice doesn’t make it more likely that others will be nice to me. Holding doors for others does not prevent doors from slamming in my face. There will be no karmic reward for my good deeds.

I know all of this, I have internalized it into my “self”, but I am still righteous. Undoubtedly, the religious indoctrination I went through in my youth contributes to my current behavior, but I actively reject the mystical and historical tenets of my previous faith. I carry the yoke of righteousness without the promise of eternal reward. I avoid “sin” but without fear of condemnation.

Am I a walking, breathing contradiction? Can this paradox be resolved? Need it be? Or are paradoxes such as this OK?

Or am I a subconscious Christian?

A literature prof once asked me what is the difference between life and a novel. I relied that novels make sense. He said that was the best answer he’d ever heard. Maybe I should listen to my own wisdom, eh?

Thoughts?

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Follow up question…

If I am subconsciously Christian, what are the implications for my soul? Am I to be saved from damnation? Or does salvation require a conscious admission a reverence of god?

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Ray wrote:

which completly throws your arguement in the previous post. do you believe you have a soul? if you do, then yes, you are a contradiction. i don’t see why you would hold on to the prospect of a soul otherwise, if you don’t believe there is a god. i think answering the question of why you believe in a soul will be the way to answer your question, for you, personally.

on a general level, righteousness can exist without a God, it’s called logic. i’m certain that if people were to act in a well-thought out, rationalistic manner then a morality would surface that is inheriently similar to a relgious mortality. after all, why do you suppose that the major religious hold so many of the same values? of course, this depends that people are doing the right kind of logic, that is, that they are using reason based on a situation rather than holding pre-conceived notions and trying to fit the world into this model. it’s actually not that easy.

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I do not believe I have a soul. Perhaps this is redundant given that statement, but I do not believe in any sort of afterlife either. I do admit I could be wrong. If I am wrong, what are the implications…?

I’m not concerned necessarily, I’m curious. This is mostly an intellectual exercise.

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I wholey and totally believe that people can live righteously apart from God providing that they act rationally and according to natural law. The fact of the matter is that soceity as a whole is tained and prevents mostp eople from thinking/acting rationally. In 99% of the instances natural law is the same as religious law (the 1% being things simply not covered by natural law and specific to religion e.g. I am the Lord your God and thou shalt not have strange gods before me).

The concepts of righteousness in it’s current incarnation along with the idea of morality; however, could not exist without the idea of God. They could still exist, but jsut with different meanings or implications. Such as Hobbes’s definition or morality, or morality in the sense of acting according to rational thought.

The Catholic view of this question would be that if you uphold the laws of God, no matter who you worship (as long as there isn’t a conscious rejection of God) all you do in their name goes to glorify Him. This is how the ignorant are saved. There is quite a bit on this topic in the gospels and in certain saints’s writings.

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By having a concrete set of morals that agree with the majority of religions, I feel that you can be righteous (this is not a very concrete word). Since you can derive the majority of these morals via logical means, I feel that you can be righteous without believing in a god.

Deriving morals via logic can be fun and should be practice by religious and no so religious people. Note that in my arguments, I am not expecting my actions to be immediately rewarded, but the actions themselves are a reward.

For example: Greed is bad

  1. I don’t like the way I feel when I am consumed by Greed
  2. When consumed by Greed, I feel that I have less control over my life
  3. I feel better when I have control over my life
  4. Greed is bad because it prevents me from enjoying my life

For example: Steeling is bad

  1. When I steel, I am usually provoked by Greed
  2. Greed is bad because it prevents me from enjoying my life (see above)
  3. Steeling is bad because it prevents me from enjoying my life

For example: Lying is bad

  1. I enjoy having intelligent conversation with other people
  2. When I lie, I have to keep track of my lie so that I won’t contradict myself
  3. When I contradict myself, I become a less credible person
  4. People are less likely to talk with a person that is not credible
  5. Lying is bad because it prevents me from enjoying me life
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— I am an atheist too. It touches me deeply to know that many here believe that people can be moral without a belief in a deity. As part of the USA’s ‘bible belt’ i rarely encounter that, even though i study the Greeks, the Romans, the Hindus, the Buddhists, the Taoists, the Confucians, the Christians, etc, and have generally endeavored to live a moral life. Someone said that, “the greatest hijacking in history was that of morality by religion.” (Carl Sagan?) At times, even though i am highly individualistic and shy away from groups i have considered becoming a secular humanist, but i think myth serves more of a valuable purpose in our lives than the Secular humanists are aware of (witness Joseph Campbell).